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1.6.1-Pilferingapples
Brick!club Les Miserables, Fantine, Book 6: Javert Ch. 1: Now, Rest Or, The Beginning of the Rest In Which Neither Diseases Nor Women Work That Way! So Fantine’s system has finally had enough and shuts down, and thus we find out what Madeleine’s REALLY keeping in his house: Nuns and hospitals! …huh. That is way weirder than anything the townsfolk invented. I mean, if I went into a guy’s house and he had some skulls on the wall, I’d just think he had eccentric tastes in furnishings. But entire live nuns walking around and being..uh…nunnish? That’s something else again. No wonder Fantine’s a bit dazed. But then we have to hear about the nun’s opinions, and augh augh augh every time Hugo starts talking about ‘womanly instincts’ I just want to put a hand over his mouth and go “shhh, Hugo, it’s okay, let’s talk about light symbolism some more” (of course then KS wants to smack him with a golf club, ah well). He’s so good with women as individual characters-motives, psychology, character consistency—, why does he get so weird about women as a group? Also there is the Virgin Thing and I don’t even KNOW what Hugo’s deal is with virgins is at this point and we’re still on Volume ONE. Aaand Thenardier finally overplays his hand. I’m glad he at least DID pay for Azelma and Eponine to get medical treatment, and I suspect Mme. Thenardier had most of the say in that. Seriously how is Cosette NOT SICK? Is she kept so far from contact with other people that she just never catches anything ow okay not thinking about it. I can understand why Valjean doesn’t go himself right off- he wants to stay nearby to keep an eye on Fantine- but geez. Surely hiring an agent would have been quicker and cheaper than the second letter of blackmail-debt? Oh well. As Sarah1281 says, JVJ lies to Fantine a LOT, and while it’s all out of kindness by now, still— he’s lying a LOT. But at least he’s trying to make his reports true as best he can? Unlike SOME PEOPLE who keep making up invoices. Next Chapter: A Charming Digression on Linguistic Drift (and probably my favorite Javert scene)! Commentary Timegoddessrose There’s some great meta around about why Valjean lies so much and it having to do with the Bishop lying to the law to save Valjean spiritually and instilling in Valjean that lying is A-OKAY if it’s “for good.” Gascon-en-exile Tiny quibble about terminology: the women attending on Fantine are not nuns but sisters (sœurs) - the difference is the same as that between a monk and a brother in that the former live solitary lives of contemplation while the latter do things like run hospitals and schools. These sisters are presumably from a local hospital unless Madeleine kidnapped them and is holding them hostage in the basement to assist him in his random acts of benevolence. The reference to the wise virgins and the foolish virgins is to one of Christ’s parables and actually has nothing to do with the virginity of either group (it’s about being ready for Judgment), and the sisters’ appropriation seems more to do with Fantine’s general immorality than with her lack of virginity specifically. I don’t really find Hugo’s views on virginity to be at all inconsistent with the general thought of his century, with the very big exception of Enjolras being “shining symbol of purity and perfection” and not “haha dude you need to get laid.” And for all his nuanced characterization of individual female characters he still endows them with variations on the very black and white Victorian archetypes. Angels get brought up several times in this chapter, both in reference to Fantine (whose suffering makes her angelic, a fairly original variation mentioned in the last chapter) and to Cosette (who just seems naturally angelic and will later take on a role much akin to that of the angel in the house for Valjean and then Marius). Pilferingapples (reply to Gascon-en-exile) As always, thanks for the Catholic terminology background! But now I’m picturing Valjean running an underground Stealth Charity Ring to go with his criminal money-leaving, and I have been laughing for a solid minute. Serrende *de-lurks and pipes up for the first time* The annotations I’ve got in my French editions (by Guy Rosa) make the point that thematically, Jean Valjean couldn’t meet Cosette when he was still the respected mayor while she was the poor outcast in rags - that he had to be a wanted criminal again, a miserable just like her, so they could meet on equal terms, sort of. But in-universe it’s harder to defend, and I do find myself wanting to push him to Montreuil-sur-Mer and get her back so Fantine could see her again before she died.